Sunday, February 15, 2009

Time

You can feel the difference in the quality of the light. The angle of the sun is already noticeably enough different. In just three weeks we'll 'spring ahead.' (I pledge that I will do my best not to complain here about daylight savings time; I've sung that song often enough before.) Anyway, you would just know; you would go outside and you would know that change has happened and that more change is coming. I love those deep instincts we have, the abilities we forget to use.

I only just figured out recently that the design of an analog clock -- the hands moving 'clockwise' around the dial -- corresponds exactly to the movement of the sun as marked by a sundial (or by a person standing perfectly still for as long as the sun shone). Did everyone else realize that except me? It made me happy to discover it, in any case, and it made me feel better about my preference for clocks with dials and not digital numbers -- does this happen to you too? -- if I see a digital clock (4:53 or whatever), or if someone just tells me the time, sometimes it doesn't really stick -- it doesn't make sense to me, or I can't easily figure how much time I've got left before I have to do something. But if I can see a clock face -- just glance at it and really just take the information in visually, instinctively -- then I have a much clearer sense of what time it is and that I have about 20 minutes before I have to get going. Sometimes I compensate by picturing a clock face when someone tells me the time.

Ah, another post that went off in a direction on its own, before I realized what was happening. I need to make the best use of the time that's left on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon; better go see what the boys are doing.

1 comment:

I have a watch based on the clock face on the Old Synagogue in Prague. It has Hebrew numerals and the fingers go 'anticlockwise'. Bizarely I can tell the time on it perfectly. Much better than on a beautiful Gucci watch which is rectangular and has no numbers at all. (It's ten past two. Or one maybe....')

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My son, then about 4 years old, was being his wild self right at bedtime. I said, "no more monkey business!" in my best stern-mom voice, and he looked me gleefully in the eye and declared, "infinity more monkeys!"